


Don't Put Your Elbows On the Table

by KnockKnockBadminton



Series: Lessons in Etiquette [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-24
Updated: 2017-02-24
Packaged: 2018-09-26 14:14:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9903116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KnockKnockBadminton/pseuds/KnockKnockBadminton
Summary: This is a series of small scenes that make up the two years apart for Prompto and Noctis in my main piece, Lessons in Etiquette. Please don't read unless you've read all ten billion fucking words of my other story lmao. Sorry I like words.





	

**Author's Note:**

> So rather than go back and add a chapter and break up the flow i just wrote out a few brief, less detailed scenes that i think would have taken place during their two year time apart. tell me what you think!

“Thank you so much for coming over to help on such short notice, Prince Noctis,” Prompto’s mother gratefully hums as the young prince lets the heavy oak dresser he carries plop unceremoniously onto their bedroom floor. He places his aching, swollen hands onto his muscle-strained thighs, his chest angled toward the floor as he shamelessly pants from the test of endurance. The blonde woman leans against the doorframe of her only son’s now unoccupied bedroom, her arms crossed against her chest. Noctis straightens up, hands on his hips, breathing quietly through his parted lips, even and soundless. There is no missing the melancholy that bows her lips into a frowning lament.

“Of course, Mrs. Argentum, it’s not like I’m doing anything…” he throws the woman a handsome smile punctuated by the rhythmic breathing. If only ignoring the whole entire kingdom qualified as _nothing_. He is impressed that he can muster such a ruse, for the very blonde in whose room they stand preoccupies the entirety of his mind. Seven days had passed since his abrupt departure, each one marking more and more time in passing between their last moment of correspondence.

His heart had instantly lit up as he’d received the call to assist Prompto’s mother and father in moving a few pieces of heavy furniture into the small bedroom. The service plea had left him with an undeniable excuse to see the parents of his best friend, one even Ignis could not undermine with stern, rational lectures. He merely bides his time in asking about Prompto, wanting to at the very help his parents before delving into the topic of _his_ choice.

His eyes are unblinking as they linger upon a collection of selfies still pinned against the blonde’s left behind corkboard, almost all of them featuring Noctis himself.

The first image features a particularly ecstatic Noctis as he holds up a decently-sized carp, the prince smiling beside himself as he admires the catch of fishing past. The second hosts a gentle, heart-warming photo of Prompto together with his family. He stands between them both, his parents beaming, proud of the human partition that divides them. His arms are on their shoulders, fleshy hooks forever embedding themselves in the lives of the first people who ever come to truly love him.

He smiles too, at the grinning family, leaning closer to admire the photos that are entirely new to him; he’d been in Prompto’s room for only fleeting moments in the past. Lazily waiting upon his bed for the blonde to finish getting ready before a day out, or rushing quickly into the room, tearing it apart together with its owner to gather the missing details for an adventure ahead.

Where the two had spent so much time at the Citadel, Noctis sadly registers how little he’d gotten to know Prompto’s own space before his abrupt departure nearly a week ago. Mrs. Argentum’s eyes remain on Noctis’ dreamily swaying frame as she turns to whisper to her husband, who joins them. He can feel her darted eyes upon him, silent, tragic, watery spotlights that highlight the hole in his heart, left behind by the stinging absence of his friend.

He glances at another polaroid that sends through Noctis a wave of adrenaline, as if he’d missed a step upon the staircase of his own emotions. Prompto grins, arms wrapped around Noctis’ neck, the prince himself smiling, eyes closed. His own arms grip Prompto around his ribcage, a bright orange spot bleaching the right hand corner of the photo where the light had been over-exposed. Other pictures, as well as remnants of Spring Festival planning on torn notebook paper, take up every space of the brown surface.

A picture of Prompto in an apron catches his attention, Ignis’ eyes closed as he smiles beside the enthusiastic blonde. He flexes together with Gladio in another, Iris mockingly hanging onto his lithe, yet defined and muscular bicep.

The photos with his advisors only work to underscore how selfish he’d been with his best friend; he’d never truly comprehended until the very photos before him that Prompto sought platonic solace in the two older men, as they had in him.

In the very center rests a photo simply showcasing Noctis, the handsome prince smiling with his arms folded upon the bright red, plastic table, a low brow staple of Kenny Crow’s. His shoulders are bedecked with his kingly cloak, the black buttons of his equally dark suit catching in the flash of the camera. Just below it rests a message upon a ripped piece of notebook paper, the words, “my best friend, the future king” written upon it in dark blue gel pen, accompanied by a small heart.

He cannot help but chuckle, but also feel somewhat shameful and exposed upon reading the raw, genuine message; surely Prompto’s parents had come to realize the blonde felt way more than fealty for the Prince of Lucis. He is grateful they say nothing about it, for they are the least likely to betray their son’s candid feelings before the prince himself, without his consent.

Perhaps they didn’t know; Noctis had spent nearly as much time with their son as they, and he had only learned of Prompto’s feelings a few days ago.

 _“The whole entire world is a lot less clueless than you, Noct…”_ his inner Ignis pipes.

“You miss him, don’t you?”

Noctis turns quickly at the question, unable to prevent his fear of further analysis from showing on his face. He thus brings his furrowed frown to face the floor, the woman only a few feet from him sighing gently.

“It’s been the worst week of my _life_ , Mrs. Argentum…” Noctis mumbles.

They stand in further silence, Noctis seeing his chance to approach the questions he’d harbored since Prompto’s leave of Insomnia.

“He just --- he left kinda suddenly…”

“He seemed a little stressed the night before he left, but I figured it was just the nerves…he’s moving, after all, and he’s never been away from Lucis. Not to mention the train ride to Lestallum takes nearly an entire twenty four hours…” his mother fondly offers.

“Yeah…” Noctis chooses to leave it at that; it is clear they knew nothing of Prompto’s briefly-lived dreams of becoming a member of his Crownsguard.

“So then, he just seemed a bit nervous? But not like, _off_ in any way?”

Mrs. Argentum scrunches her face before answering.

“A little shaken up, but normal…very sad to go, we had a very emotional departure from one another, and he said something very strange --- _sweet_ , but strange…”

“What’s that?”

“That no matter who he really is, he loves us and is glad we love him so to call him our son…I’m sorry…” she brings a fist to her mouth as she chokes up, Noctis turning away toward the cork board of pictures so that she does not see the tears well up in his own eyes.

* * *

 

Noctis had not come to the track field, or the school grounds for that matter, since having graduated in May. He cannot even say the field itself is recognizable under the sheet of even, knee high snow that continues to accumulate, small threads of meteorological fabric woven into an icy quilt, heavy and thick.

The dirty scent of the inner city is covered under the snow, a dirty secret ill hidden. The urge to check the time on his phone is quickly replaced by thoughts of the one he waits upon; the familiarity of the school and snow untrampled upon leaves Noctis uncertain if he is in the present, or transported instead to the similar scene he’d known a year ago.

His quickly freezing legs are like stiffened noodles in his fleece lined, thermal leggings, and the impenetrable grey of the calm, silent snow storm muffles the deep swings of the school bell. Noctis stands with his ungloved hands in the pockets of his waist-length, dark blue, form fitting puffer coat. The snow compresses under his thick boots, staring upward as fresh flakes threaten to bury his unmoving frame where he stands. The faux brown and white strands of fur rustle as the wind picks up faster, harder, though Noctis decides against shielding his ears from the chilling wind, lest the one he waits on is unable to recognize him with his hood.

His patience leaves him with nothing to preoccupy him but the ceaseless chill that lays siege to his face in the form of fat, puffy snowflakes. They catch on his nose, freezing the end of it as if touched by the very tip of Shiva’s finger. They mingle in his hair, melting and refreezing whole strands together, leaving his hair akin to that of a frozen mad scientist.

He does not even hear Prompto approach, nor does he see evidence of the path he took in the snow, the entire field free of footprints. Prompto, handsome, beautiful Prompto, stands before him in an olive green coat, brownish-black leather strands crisscrossing into leather holes to hold the coat itself shut in the calm, though no less violently cold weather. His rosy cheeks blister and peel from the exposure to the air, and small tears escape from where he attempts to clench them shut.

“It’s crazy, huh? This is literally exactly how we met, a year ago…”  Prompto casually blurts before he can stop himself; six months he had longed to see the prince who stands before him, for he had not seen the young man since June. Six months, and so are the chosen first words, first words being small mistakes, often regrettable. Thankfully Noctis plays it all just as cool, as if influenced by a frigid, frosty fear of moving his swollen, frozen lips, his breath swirling up into the air as he softly laughs at his blunt and pushy friend.

“Has it really been a year? Since --- since then?” Noctis furrows his brow at his awkward response. He goes to lift his foot to inch closer to his best friend, maintaining the calm and subtle air only because his flesh swells upward against the leather so they grind against the inner dip from his ankle down to his toes, making it impossible to run.

“Yeah, and a year ago we decided to hold that talk outside _too_ , for whatever reason. I think we just like to meet in snowstorms, instead of like, you know, _indoors_?” Prompto shivers, though he closes his eyes and smiles as Noctis finally reaches his destination, bringing a frozen hand to cup an equally frozen cheek.

“It’s funny how shit like that works out…” is Noctis’ only rebuttal, and almost as if on cue, he brings the blonde closer against him, shielding him from the still falling snow.

“I guess so …” Prompto laughs, perfectly content to share their soft embrace. “It’s almost kinda like, poetic in a way, you know?”

“Difference is were not screaming at each other…” Noctis laughs as Prompto shifts in his arms, not a single other sound in the world meeting their ears. “I wasn’t expecting this to go so smoothly, to be honest…I guess I was expecting ---”

“A shouting match to totally put how we met to shame?” Prompto suggests, but Noctis shakes his head. “I don’t really wanna yell, I wanna do something else…”

“What…” Prompto whispers, Noctis bringing their lips closer, yet as soon as they touch he shoots up in his bed, heart beating and his features strained at anger and disappointment over yet another Prompto dream, trading his coat for matching fleece pajamas, the schoolyard for his bedroom. The grey of the early morning snow storm remains the same, covering the Lucian skyline below.

Gladio can tell the prince received little sleep the night before. His headache induced stupors were more desperate, as if by stretching himself out he could eventually extend his soul beyond the constraints of his physically ailing body. The lack of sleep pose is a pouty slouch, glassy eyes with reveries untraceable by any thinkable call to earth.

“Another one?” Gladio sadly asks the prince, who attempts to swallow his moodiness and sit up as the robed delegation of Galahd files into the conference room, the stone and granite room freezing; the blizzard outside reaches temperatures and proportions unseen in Lucis for nearly a hundred years. It would not be long until the fire was lit and hearths were warmed --- Regis is a much more gracious host than Ardyn would ever credit him for.

Noctis nods before he turns away tersely, unsuccessfully hiding the third set of silent tears Gladio had managed to steal fleeting glimpses of from the Prince that week.

Noctis stares at the thick, gold, ornamental stationary used for diplomatic purposes by the Caelums. Were Prompto to consistently continue to refuse to communicate with him in real life, he internally curses, he wishes he would consistently stay out of his dreams.

* * *

 

_Prince Noctis also asked us to wish you a happy eighteenth birthday, sweetheart. Does he not have your new phone number?_

Prompto re-reads the message from his parents, thanks to the thirty gil he’d shelled out on a charger. Whilst the public possession of a smart phone left citizens of Cleigne to believe that Prompto stemmed from a wealthy family of barons and duchesses, he chooses to ignore the reality of being an orphaned, lower-class, robotic monstrosity. The birthday wish does the opposite of inspire him to live his life so dutifully given to him by a birth mother never truly known; the added depression of having Noctis’ number blocked leaves him with little enthusiasm to get out of bed or attend class. He leaves the message unreplied to before hitting the side button to lock the screen, rolling over to face the wall. Had he even been born at all?

* * *

 

Prompto smirks down at the black and white newspaper featuring Noctis, together with Ignis and Regis, amongst other members of the cabinet. The headline reads, _Caelum King-in-Waiting First Official Approval Rating At 79%, According to Survey of Lucian People._ He is proud of his friend. Pride is all it can be, all he can feel, until shame sneaks up within him, coiling guiltily within his stomach. The urges do not fade, the urges to celebrate with the young man himself with console games and kisses, their fingers curled in those of the other as they fall asleep in between pecks. He stares out the window into the darkness of the world, pointedly ignoring the Daemons upon the road, knowing that hundreds of miles away, Noctis looks out his own window into the very same darkness, a spoonful of Ignis’ sugarfree pistachio and fig ice cream touching his lips.

* * *

 

Culture shock soon eased into small, brief crackles as Prompto slips into his second semester. Where customary difference had once worn down on him like a constant, grating file, the pressures of class soon buried him in emotional turmoil, entombed in academic anguish. There was no denying Prompto’s talent and his rightfully deserved place at the world’s top art school. No evidence pointed toward Prompto being intellectually incapable (a bit lazy and immature at times, though he had not seen grades lower than “highly satisfactory”) --- though once amongst the rank of the elite, one’s best is merely everyone’s average; how his time with Noctis had never prepared him for such a truth, he would never know it.

Worse over is the sheer affluence many of his classmates seem to flaunt. Where Noctis had never wanted for anything, he’d never given the impression of being _wealthy_. His things were merely nice, his belongings top of the line, sleek and never scratched, luxurious. Apart from when he would pay for lunch or never ending gaming sessions at the arcade, Noctis never spent money; he merely _has._

The cameras of his well-to-do, Altissian aristocratic colleagues are towering with oblique lenses and large, rectangular flashes. They are vintage, metallic, black --- Prompto’s trusted, faithful apparatus is broken. The aperture lens had jostled to the point of reparability so expensive, it would require nearly three entire paychecks of both his parents to fix or replace.

_I know you’re cutting off communication with your friends to focus on your studies, sweetie, and I respect that…_

Prompto’s mother had written him in a letter in response to the news of his broken camera.

_But I mentioned it in passing to Prince Noctis’ advisor, he likes to check up on you a lot, and I guess he told the prince we could not afford a camera. Supposedly the prince went straight to the Promenade and bought you one, but his advisor dropped it off at the house while we were at work, so we didn’t get to see him._

Prompto covers his mouth as he pulls the package contained in thick, Lucian cardboard, bubble wrap floating to the floor. He can no longer stifle the silent sobs that slip from between his lips as he brings the camera he brings into his hands, sleek, heavy, top of the line, and _very_ expensive. he would have to send them a thank you note at some point.

* * *

 

Noctis grabs his hot chocolate off the bar, Amelia flashing him a quiet, soft smile before assisting another customer. She had come to learn he preferred not to talk since Prompto left for Lestallum. He knicks his head down at the sound of patrons whispering his name, though one voice sounds familiar ---

“Noooooct!”

He turns around quickly to see a red headed woman waving him down violently, a curly haired man holding her hand. He slowly, quietly smiles as he registers Aelia and Philo, who only stop waving crazily at him once he places his drink back on the counter and walks over, hands in his pockets.

The forceful hugs both of them give him nearly send him toppling onto the ground, eyes wide open. He brings his hands out of his pocket, heavily patting both of his high school friends on the back. His surprised, stilted reaction is not to say he is not happy to see them.

“What’re you two doing here?” Noctis chuckles, trying his best to be airy; he had not shared a casual conversation with someone outside of the royal sphere since Prompto left.

“Uhh, same as you, silly goose!” Aelia closes her eyes as she smiles, bouncing on her feet and gripping her cup. _“Grabbing coffee?!”_

“Well…uh…not _coffee_ …” Noctis laughs, Philo clapping Noctis on his shoulder, the two of them wearing classy wool peacoats, Aelia’s snow kissed face red and pale, matching her gorgeous red hair. They look so trendy yet mature, Noctis laments, the six months since graduation having suited them well. Noctis, who sports tight black jeans and a shirt hidden underneath his puffer coat, feels suddenly unkingly before his constituents --- his friends, he reminds himself. He cannot help but feel slightly jealous as they make their own way as they take their first steps into adulthood _together_ , by the looks of things, their hands clasped in one another’s.

“Took you guys long enough…” Noctis smirks, jealous, surely, but happy for them.

“Looks like you and Prompto are still taking _your_ sweet time…” Aelia winks, Philo choking on a particularly heavy swallow of his espresso before laughing out loud.

 _“What the hell is that supposed to mean?!”_ Noctis instantly sputters, stepping backward in surprise.

“Come on, Noct, this is the longest we’ve ever gone being around you without Old Prommo bounding around the corner, and we’ve been talking for what, _two_ minutes now?” Philo notices the pink that creeps up on Noctis’ cheeks, unable to stop himself from devilishly grinning.

“Look, congrats to you and Lady Lunafreya, we read all about it, but if the people of Lucis got to vote in their future queen, I think you know who’d get the popular vote…”

“Seriously though, Noct, where’s Prompto? You guys are inseparable!” Philo adopts a more serious tone, peering about the coffee shop.

“He --- uh --- he left for Lestallum, back in June…”

“Ohhh, that’s so like, _awesome_ , but so sad…” Aelia frowns.

“I miss him a lot…”

“Do you guys not really talk at all?” Philo curiously questions, Noctis chuckling once before getting lost in his thoughts momentarily; the two had not communicated since the brief, awkward postcard he’d received for his birthday.

“…Not really, no…” Noctis whispers. “I --- he’s busy, you know? A-and I gotta lot goin’ on, with Galahd and taking over the throne, courting the Oracle…” he tries to add, though his crestfallen expression betrays him.

“I guess you two _do_ do your better work when you’re apart…”

“A lot like you guys,” Noctis retorts, Aelia sticking her tongue out at the prince.

“I mean, good for him though, Prompto had to go out there, it would have been a waste of his skills to not get the best photography education in the _world_ ,”

“He’s got the talent and deserves to be out there; I’m happy for him…” Noctis hollowly responds, Philo smiling before shaking his head.

“You’re a _really_ bad liar Noct, you better practice your skills before you’re giving speeches on tv.”


End file.
